


Wise Men Say

by virago



Category: Original Work
Genre: F/M, M/M, Pining, gay pining, lol, thats it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-29
Updated: 2016-02-29
Packaged: 2018-05-23 22:00:00
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,790
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6131497
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/virago/pseuds/virago
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The music is quiet enough that everyone can hear the old wood floor creaking beneath your feet. You make your elaborated way across the oval, not too close to the smiling, supportive edges. Your wife is a more complementary height than I was when I taught you that turn.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> this is the lame gay story that everyone wanted to read after i made this post on tumblr about how my workshop tried their very hardest to make it straight lmao http://drfurter.tumblr.com/post/129658769560/some-highlights-from-the-time-i-workshopped-a-gay
> 
> actually that post comes from part/chapter two of the story, but i'm publishing the first part too bc they're companion pieces
> 
> part one is from the pov of the best man, part two from the groom

The crowd shuffles back, briefly becoming a hive-mind in the effort to form a clear circle in the center of the flowery reception hall. It ends up as more of an oval, really, and the northern end of it is a bit flat like the bottom of a hard-boiled egg. You’re about to dance in the middle of a hard-boiled egg.

It’s hushed now. Your audience is watching you with dopey smiles and glazed eyes. Well, they’re watching your new wife, too. Probably mainly watching her; the bride is the star of the show, and she’s quite a spectacle in all that gauzy white. She’s a very pretty cotton ball, and she’s looking at you like the cat looks at the cream. You’re content to be the cream.

I wish the band would hurry up and start, because it’s getting awkward with you just standing there. Close enough to hold a balloon between your bellies, one hand on her cotton waist, the other probably getting tired stuck up in the air like that. That smile must make your cheeks sore. Everyone’s smiling.

Guitar strings are softly plucked. A throat is artistically cleared. The old lady with a bird on her hat standing next to me catches her breath and presses a raisiny hand to her chest. It’d be ironic if the start of your new life causes her to keel over. Would you be invited to the funeral?

The quiet strums of the guitar pick up an actual tune. It’s nice. It should be nice—I hired the band. I’m glad it’s nice.

You don’t watch as the singer-guitarist leans toward the retro fifties style microphone. I don’t, either. You watch your wife’s face. I watch your feet to see if you’ll remember our lessons.

 

_Wise men say only fools rush in_

_But I can’t help falling in love with you_

In the nine years I’ve known you, you’ve been quite a rusher. You’re rushing now into the first step as if the even tempo of the song caught you off guard. Your wife steadies you and you go into the first turn with more grace than I’d hoped your left feet could manage. The Bird Lady sighs happily, wistfully, nostalgically—however many adjectives you want.

 

“…You’re not rushing into things?” I said when you told me the good news. I can’t remember whether I said ‘Congratulations’ before or after I said ‘You’re not rushing into things?’ It must have been before. ‘Congratulations’ is the first thing you say when your best friend tells you he’s marrying his girlfriend of four months, the one with the scarves and the job at the elementary school who got you a King vinyl for your birthday before you even knew her name. She’s a rusher, too.

“What do you mean?” you said. There was a note in your voice that sounded like it wanted to be persuaded. Maybe I’m adding the note to my memory now. The whole night is a bit blurry, even at the time. Like we were trying not to rush it, trying so hard that time and meaning got distorted like the _whur-whurrr_ of a slowing turntable.

I spent so much time trying to figure out what you wanted to hear that you went ahead and said it yourself. “I’m forty-one years old, I think it’s time to start rushing. I’ve lived half my life already.”

“More than half if you keep up with all that red meat.”

“Don’t forget the beer.” You helped yourself to my fridge and two more Yuenglings, clicking the bottles together in a one-man toast before placing mine on the coffee table. I tried to think of another joke. You were thirty-two when we became friends.

“And anyway,” you said, air deflating from your lungs like they’re flat tires as you dropped back into the sofa cushions, “I love her. She’s funny, kind, smart. We get along great, and she always eats my side salads. It’s very…” You looked at the label on your bottle like it was a cue card. “Affirming.”

“Sounds so.”

I trust your judgment. I’ve always been wise.

 

The music is quiet enough that everyone can hear the old wood floor creaking beneath your feet. You make your elaborated way across the oval, not too close to the smiling, supportive edges. Your wife is a more complementary height than I was when I taught you that turn.

 

_Shall I stay, would it be a sin_

_If I can’t help falling in love with you_

 

You stayed at my apartment all night. After six beers each, you had to stay at my apartment all night. I called your keeper so she wouldn’t worry. “Take care of my fiancé,” she said. ‘Fiancé’ was needlessly emphasized, but I guess it must have felt good to stake her diamond-backed claim.

I felt like a guest as I arranged you on my sofa and tossed you my afghan. I felt like a guest when you brought your fiancée over a week later with Chinese take out. I looked at you for guidance when she spread magazines across my coffee table and asked me what I thought of the flower arrangements, but you were looking into your carton of beef lo mein. I said she should choose the color scheme for the bridesmaids first and then pick flowers that complement the dresses.

“Let’s make it Hitchcock themed,” you said, thumping a hand on my shoulder. “But mid-Hitchcock, nothing before _Strangers on a Train._ That’s when he really hit his groove.”

“Your obsession with the fifties is unhealthy,” I said, raking individual grains of rice to a pile big enough to scoop up in the corner of my carton. I’d heard this countless times before.

“They don’t call it the Golden Age for nothing.”

“I think it had more to do with the economy than the Master of Suspense, though.”

The bride-to-be used a dirty chopstick to drag a magazine close enough to snatch off the table. “We can’t decorate a church with film posters,” she said.

You looked at me and smirked like we were sharing a joke, so I gave a grimace back.

After that, I got unhealthily obsessed with the wedding planning. I arranged your seating chart, hired the band, and decided how to have the serviettes folded. You welcomed it, glad to not have to have an opinion on dinnerware. I welcomed it, because it felt comforting to take part in my own defeat.

I began choosing my sins. I bargained for Ten in exchange for Seven. I sinned against myself instead of against you. I’d been sinning since we met, so the decision to lean into sin, into the wedding plans, was only logical. It was a sin, but I stayed anyway.

 

You’re coming my way now, and Bird Lady grips my arm with a strength that belies her age. I don’t even know her— _you_ don’t even know her—and her sneak-attack almost makes me miss you waltzing past me. I get the briefest of glances of you from over your wife’s shoulder, but I’m quick enough to remember to smile. You’re close enough that I can see your brows furrowed in concentration and your lips mutely mouthing _one two-three_. You guide your wife into a pirouette and turn away from me. I can smell her perfume.

 

_Like a river flows surely to the sea_

_Darling so it goes_

_Some things are meant to be_

I wonder what rivers your wife has had the pleasure of cruising along, because the gentle tempo of this song doesn’t match the rush and crash of the whitewater rapids we’ve kayaked through.

That adventure started out well intentioned enough. We’d hiked the Appalachian Trail, skied in Colorado, and rode donkeys up and down the Grand Canyon. Kayaking was next on the list, and the two hundred dollar lessons went well enough that we decided we didn’t need a guide.

You made yourself master of that river with whoops and hollers, and I swore that adrenaline was a virus and not a hormone. Blood rushed through my ears like foam rushed past rocks. My muscles were electrified, my grin must have been permanently plastered to my face. You shouted “King of the world!” and that must have given me enough courage or stupidity to aim for the narrow passage between boulders that led to a terrifyingly tempting drop.

The current sped up, the kayak wobbled, and the rock snagged the paddle from my freezing hands. I don’t know where you were when I started drowning, and I definitely don’t know how you managed to get back to me. I know that when the water froze my lungs and the rocks battered my back I started thinking about Richard Siken and being “ready to die in this swimming pool because you wanted to touch his hands and lips and this means your life is over anyway.” Some things are meant to be.

But you took my hand, took my whole life too, and breathed it back into me on the gravel shore. I don’t remember that part, of course, just the hell of vomiting up a river. I do remember how you were looking at me when the flecks of grey finally cleared from my sight.

Maybe that’s why I still can’t help trying to impress you even though it’s shaping up to be the death of me.

 

Bird Lady lets go of me by the time you’re halfway across the hall, but she’s not done with me yet. “I always cry at weddings,” she simpers over the lyrics. She looks up at me for a response, and she’s not crying. Her face is scrunched up with emotion, but there are no tears. Did she mean that figuratively? She’s not crying.

I hope my smile and nod are reply enough; this isn’t where my attention needs to be.

“Everything changes after a wedding.” She’s looking back at the happy couple now, back at you. You’re saying something that makes your wife giggle. Bird Lady giggles too, looking to me to join in on your joke. I bring out my smile again.

“That was a lovely speech you gave, by the way,” she says, patting my arm. “You made a fine best man.”

 

_Like a river flows surely to the sea_

_Darling so it goes_

_Some things are meant to be_

I told an abridged version of the kayaking story in my speech, “Because it was the most exciting time Scott saved my life. I could tell you about all the different times he’s done it, in all the different ways, but that’s the only one that involves an extreme sport, and I didn’t want to put you all to sleep again so soon after that long ceremony.” Laughter swept through the hall at that, and I breathed a bit more easily.

I took a moment to look at the crowd. At the fifty-dollar suits rented for today and the bright dresses that seemed to be exclusively floral in pattern. Three hundred twenty one people in the reception hall I helped choose; you didn’t know three-fourths of them. I didn’t either, of course, but I wasn’t really addressing them to begin with.

I turned to you, sitting at the middle of the head table with my vacated seat right next to you. “Scott. For better or for worse you’ve stood by me. Sometimes I wonder if you’re crazy for doing it, for seeing me as someone worthy of being saved time and again. For being the good, warm, sympathetic, steadfast man you are, you deserve every reward. You seem to have found that in the woman you just made your wife.” The guests _aww’d_ , but we ignored them. Your expression gave as lengthy a speech as the one I was closing up. Shock blanketed by understanding. Relief under hope under regret. We’d always been wise men.

“So I wish you every joy you can find with her. If the love I’ve given you has made you happy, then the love you’ll share in marriage will make you the most disgustingly happy man on earth. You deserve it.”

The guests clapped when you hugged me. When you finally pulled your arms and your eyes away from me and sat next to your wife, she clapped too.

 

You’re in the middle of the hard-boiled egg now, which is slowly shrinking as it anticipates the end of the song. Soon the people will clap, converge, and congratulate before taking over the dance floor for the rest of the night.

 

_Take my hand, take my whole life too_

_For I can’t help falling in love with you_

_For I can’t help falling in love with…_

The side door closes on the reception hall, muffling the cheers. It’s freezing outside, but my car isn’t far away.

 

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> part 2, from the pov of the groom

The crowd applauds, ringing hands and boisterous whoops stampeding over the last notes and final words of the song, which irritates me a bit because I really liked it when you played it for me and you got a singer who’s as close to Elvis as you can get without a pompadour and a red sash. Anyway, they’re clapping and converging, so I immediately forget the final dip you taught me and stop, almost bumping into my girl—wife—with the aborted momentum. She clamps down hard on my shoulder to steady herself as I look around at the audience. There are so many people, and the smiles say they enjoyed the show we just put on. Who doesn’t enjoy a wedding? It’s like a day at the theatre, watching a well-choreographed drama with a happy ending, only better because you get to take part a bit, you get a role of your own as Celebratory Cousin #2. Or like watching a baseball game at Fenway Park and already knowing the Red Sox are going to win. The camaraderie of the crowd, the excitement of the spectacle.

There are so many people (who are all these people?), and it’s impossible to make out all the faces when they’re shifting and bulging and when the wedding photographer apparently brought a strobe light. That’s why I can’t find your face—or more likely it’s because you let yourself get trampled by people eager to shake my hand and hug my wife and then take over the dance floor themselves. You’re too nice, I think sometimes, too giving. Too easily trampled. I give one last sweeping look before my wife, my _wife_ , pulls me into a newly-wed kiss. The strobe light flashes.

 

How many people did you say were attending? Over three hundred, I think. You kept better track of the guest list than I did, which might explain why I don’t recognize half these people. They keep clapping me on the back, hugging me, shaking my hand as I try to make it to the wet bar. I can’t get past the more persistent ones who actually stop me and demand to know how I’m feeling (thirsty), if I’m happy (of course I am, it’s my wedding day), where the honeymoon will be (somewhere _remote_ ), if I remember them from my wife’s family reunion I was forced to attend two months ago (were you the one who got shit-faced drunk and pissed on my car tire?). I just want a drink. A man should be able to get a drink on his wedding day. A man should be _handed_ a continuous supply of drinks on his wedding day. My wife was right, we should have hired servers to wear penguin suits and circulate booze and finger food around the reception hall, but I thought it’d be easier (and cheaper) to just have a bar, and that’s why I’m the one fighting my way to it while my wife does the sensible thing and waits for me to bring her back a drink while holding court to all the well-wishers clumping around her on their way to dance. She looks perfect back there, in her element. Expertly handling the guests. She was meant to be a bride.

I was meant to be a comfortably inebriated groom. Just one glass of champagne—I don’t even really like the stuff but it’s the appropriate drink for a wedding—one glass to celebrate and, if I’m honest, to settle the nerves. I’m better in huge crowds with a drink in me, probably better in a huge crowd celebrating my _wedding_ with two. You know this, you know my first stop after the dance would be the bar, so I expect to see you waiting for me there when I finally make it past my sister-in-law’s brood. I slap a hand on the bar like it’s home plate on a baseball diamond. Safe. I lean around the other bodies gathered around the watering hole, crane my neck. You’re not here. I’m still keeping an eye out for you when I order the champagne, still ready to greet you with a grin and hear you say I messed up this step or that in the dance. The bartender gives me my consolation prize, too bubbly as it goes down my throat. I wince.

 

You forced a glass of champagne on me when I told you the news, in between the first and second twelve-pack of Yuenglings you still stocked at the apartment for me even after I started spending half my time at my fiancée’s . “It’s the appropriate drink for a wedding,” you said, “You’ll have to get used to it.” You called the glass a flute and carefully tipped the bottle. “A toast,” you said, hauling me off the couch and straightening your back. I waited, glass to lips, watching you look serious and important. Your mouth opened, then closed, lips pursed. There were words behind your lips, I could see them. Building up, arranging themselves neatly, ready to knock me off my feet, and I found myself holding my breath, needing to hear them. You’d always been a great orator, and you’d always remind me of how you beat me out for the role of Hamlet in high school, back before we were friends.

“To be, or not to be— that is the question,” I prompted. You startled out of your thought, spine losing its stiffness as you laughed and stumbled towards me, hand on my shoulder to still your wobbly feet.

“Fuck you, Horatio,” you gasped, and there was so much emotion in your voice you may as well have been on stage. I started to laugh, hesitant, wrapping my arm around your waist to steady myself as much as you, and it was all far too much coordination for two men well on their way from buzzed to drunk. I found myself with my head over your shoulder and my nose in my flute, blinking hard to keep it steady in my eyes.

“You’re gonna have to go to _church_ ,” you whispered in mock horror that sounded real in the way only drunk people can manage. I snorted, and when champagne bubbles shot up my nose I pushed away to laugh through my recovery, to your hysterical amusement.

“So will you,” I slurred, hands on my knees and champagne flute wisely on the coffee table for safekeeping. “Right by the altar…thing.” You quieted down as I lowered myself onto the table. “And you’ll have to come up with a better speech than that. I mean, ‘Fuck you, Horatio,’ fine with me, but traditionally best man speeches are a bit longer.” I looked up at you, then, and got a bit dizzy with how far I had to tilt my neck back to meet your eye, except you didn’t even return the favor. “Hey,” I said, grabbing your hand and waggling it for attention. “What’s in your champagne glass that’s more interesting than me asking—I’m asking… Will you be my best man?”

I’d proposed to my wife in a living room, hers, less than eight hours ago. Knelt down, gazed up at her radiant smile. Held her hand as I slipped on the ring. Your smile, when it came, was a bit. Less.

But then you looked at your hand in mine and said of course, obviously, who else but you for the job. You slipped from my grasp to fetch my champagne and push it back into my hand.

“To you,” you said, raising your own flute. Maybe I recognized the look on your face, or maybe the alcohol tinted my view.

I tossed back my champagne, grimacing around the bubbles and powering through so I could get it down in one.

 

I take it slower now, only sipping from my flute as I lean against the bar and chat with some guests. I know I’m drawing it out, withstanding the bubbles, to give you time to come find me. My attention is split between the slightly lewd conversation about the bridesmaids (some of whom are now my in-laws, thank you) and scanning the crowd for you. Maybe you’re part of the throng around the dance floor; it’s been cleared out again, empty but for my wife and her dad. The music starts up, and they begin a hobbling dance. My father-in-law is…all the grace comes from his daughter, but there’s an assured air about him, and his smile, the look on his face as he basks in the attention of my wife and gives it right back, is all that matters. Maybe that’s a bit what I looked like, for my dance. It’s easy to have that sort of look, blessed and blissed, when she—

I think I see you, across the hall, talking to a tottery old woman of some relation with a bird on her hat. You’re so good with people, of course you’d be caught up with getting to know the guests; I can never go to a bar with you without you learning the bartender’s entire life story. I’ve left my champagne behind and I’m halfway across the hall before the man turns and I see he’s not you. Decidedly not you. Of course he’s not you, we’re wearing coordinating grey tuxedos that you picked out and this guy’s tux is black. I think I hate him. I hope my wife’s not too close to him, because he won’t be invited over for Christmas. I hate the old lady too, for good measure. I recognize her, you were standing next to her during my first dance with my wife, and now she’s gone and found another tall man with nice blond hair to hang on to. Is she collecting them? Why does she have a bird on her hat?

I get in one more sweep of the hall—did you go to the men’s room?—before the crowd applauds and my wife is suddenly back by my side. She looks a bit disappointed at my lack of champagne, but kisses my cheek anyway. I hold her close and kiss her fully, my _wife_ , and the crowd cheers louder, laughs when she pumps her bouquet in the air like a trophy. When she pulls away, she belongs to the crowd again, the perfect bride, and announces that she’ll be tossing her bouquet now, so all the single women better gather round.

The bridesmaids form a cluster, and some of the younger cousins run and shove, forming an excited bunch at the edge of the dance floor. My wife squeezes my hand, and then turns her back. Counts dramatically to three, closes her eyes, and flings the flowers in a graceful arc that matches the curve of her back. White and pink peonies glide through the air.

You’d call them ivory and rose.

 

The flowers were picked the same day the catering was. Same place, too, which was a bit overwhelming. We’d gone to the shop, you, me, and my fiancée, to sample some food, and before we left we’d settled the catering, the drinks, the centerpieces, the church decorations, and, of course, the flowers. Wedding plans are supposed to take months, but we knocked out a good chunk of it in one breakneck afternoon, in one claustrophobic showroom.

I was disoriented as soon as I opened the door. It was blinding inside, chandeliers taking up all the real estate the ceiling had to offer and reflecting light off a thousand crystals. The electric bill for this place must have been ridiculous. I blinked hard against the sharp light, trying to take in everything in the stuffed showroom and find where we were supposed to go to taste the food. “Is that where we…” I started, looking at a long banquet table overflowing with flowers in short vases and delicate looking plates. It was almost intimidating— the whole place was intimidating— and my fiancée had to prod me forward so she and you could get inside and out of the rain.

“I don’t think we get to eat on those plates unless we buy them,” she said, smiling and grabbing my hand when she spotted the proprietor coming towards us.

“Mr. Dabro, Scott Dabro, twelve o’clock?” she asked, answering my nod with a firm, brisk handshake. She meant business. “And you must be the soon-to-be Mrs. Dabro, how lovely.” Another handshake, and her wrist was so thin I bet if she held it against one of the chandeliers the light would shine right through. How did she pack so much punch in such a thin wrist? She turned to you. “…And you are?”

“The soon-to-be looking for a roommate,” you said, not missing a beat, “and the only opinion on hors d’oeuvres that matters.” My fiancée rolled her eyes, but the proprietor tittered politely and I personally thought you weren’t wrong. I detached myself from my fiancée when we were right-this-wayed through the wedding paraphernalia, giving myself space to maneuver through an obstacle course of aisle columns with as wide a berth as the narrow path allowed. “They’re more afraid of you than you are of them,” you whispered over my shoulder. I grunted, not wanting to waste the coordination to give you a stern look, which was probably good because you would have been able to see the laughter in my eyes. We both fell silent, devoting our attention to not getting lost in the maze.

We made it across to the other side of the showroom where a group of low tables waited in line by a back room. I couldn’t even see these tables when we entered the shop, the glass and flowers that crowded the room crowding the eye. The place was unnecessarily crowded. Clogged. Congested.

I clapped my hands, shaking off the claustrophobia. “Appetizers first?” I said, mostly joking, as I took a seat. “I’m starving.” My fiancée directed a laugh at the caterer who came to greet us and a glare at me; she took the wedding planning business seriously. I watched her be attentive for a while as we were told about the catering options before getting bored and looking to you.

You were staring at a flower stand like it personally offended you. Dozens of bouquets in a riot of color resting flush against each other like a satin quilt. I was about to ask you if I needed to beat them up when a sneeze tore the words from my mouth.

“Ivy,” you said immediately. “Stay away from that unless you want to be blowing your nose in your wife’s wedding veil. You’ll want myrtle for true love, or heliotrope for eternal love. Yarrow, everlasting love. There’s a garden full of different types of love. I wonder if there’s garden variety love.” You looked like you’d faint before the words stopped tumbling out of you, but you caught your breath when the caterer interrupted with three small plates.

“He’s a bit particular when it comes to flowers,” my fiancée told her, even though there’s no way the caterer had heard the conversation. “But I think he’s partial to green carnations.” I huffed a laugh, but when I turned to share it with you your gaze was frozen on my fiancée. “I’ll be choosing my flowers for the look of them, not some stuffy old symbolism.”

The caterer and I hesitated. She recovered first, delivering the first salad before hurrying off for more. Something was wrong, your muscles hardened to bone and your stare fixed on the table, and I went no further than picking up my fork before I had to say something to fix it.

“Is there a flower for lust?” I muttered, just to you, nudging your elbow and taking a bite of spinach. You looked at me, good, your mouth twitching as you settled back into your wobbly chair. You picked at your salad till I thought I wouldn’t get an answer, making _my_ fists clench, but then you plucked a tiny drenched leaf off your fork and caught my eye.

“Coriander,” you said. “Better for salads than bouquets, though.”

I laughed, fist to mouth to preserve polite company, though the kick from my fiancée told me I wasn’t doing a good job.

After two more salads, I voted for the coriander.

 

I don’t even get to look for you some more after my niece catches the bouquet, because right after that comes the business with the garter. The men whoop and the women giggle as an old college buddy drags a chair to the middle of the dance floor. My wife sits, blushing for show, and my shoulders are clapped with enough hands and enough force to send me down to my knees in front of her. The reception’s personal Elvis starts singing “A Little Less Conversation” and I’m happy enough to take my cue.

My first thought underneath my wife’s wedding dress goes to how hot it is. I might suffocate. My second thought goes to how smooth my wife’s legs are. I press a kiss to her thigh and hum along to the song, making her giggle and jerk. I get the lace of the garter between my teeth, trying to be gentle, and think about throwing it to you. Stop. Halfway down my wife’s leg, I stop. I don’t like that idea.

You’ve been single the whole time I’ve known you. I lift my wife’s calf, drag the garter down to her ankle. You’ve never brought guys around the apartment, never introduced me to a boyfriend. You probably wouldn’t even want to catch the garter, it’d just be weird. You’re not like the girls who clamored for the bouquet. I kiss my wife’s ankle and maneuver the garter past her high heel. You probably won’t even join the group of bachelors I can hear gathering around behind me. I probably won’t even see you there.

I smooth my wife’s gown and clamber to my feet, the scrap of lace hanging from my nearly slack mouth. I turn around. You’re not there.

You’re not there.

I take off, garter in my fist. The crowd parts for me, confused until they decide I’m pulling some sort of stunt and laugh. You’re not anywhere in this crowd, but you were never really comfortable around public displays of affection with my girlfriends, you never even really _liked_ any of my girlfriends, so maybe you stepped out, maybe you’re in one of the back rooms where the bride will change into a less formal dress before the real dancing starts. I push through them all, all the cousins and coworkers and friends I don’t know, until I reach the French doors leading to a hallway, and push through those, too. I check through the bathroom, all the stalls, all the empty chambers set up as dressing rooms, banging the doors open and calling through each one.

I’m as frantic as I was when I thought you’d lost my wedding bands, when I slammed open your dressers and upended them over your bed. “Where did you put them? It was your job to keep them safe, one of your only goddamned jobs for the most important day of my life—Why do you have so many socks!” I dumped them all on the floor and moved onto your next drawer. You didn’t try to stop me.

“You were drunk when you gave them to me, we both were, I don’t remember! But they have to be—”

“You got me drunk, it was your idea and your wine—”

“Isn’t that what people do? When there’s good news, celebration? You came over with the rings, and you were more than happy to—to start—”

“We got too drunk.”

I want to apologize now, for the stupid wedding bands; I was the one who put them in the toolbox underneath the kitchen sink because I thought they looked like fucking hex nuts and that was just hilarious. I need to find you and apologize, but you’re not in any of these rooms _._ I’m starting to convince myself I didn’t check all of the stalls in the men’s room—please tell me you’ve been taking an hour-long shit this whole time—and I’m almost back where I started when the door to the ladies’ room opens right in front of me.

I manage to stop in my tracks before I bust my nose, but I’m moving again right away, trying to get around the lady with the bird on her hat.

“Oh, sorry, dear,” she says over my excuse-me’s, gripping my elbows with a surprising strength for hands that are all bone. “Oh, Scott! My new great-nephew, how lovely.” I step around her, and she moves with me, tucking an arm through mine. “You and your bride were so lovely, the whole wedding was lovely. And the dancing, and the sweet little flower girl, and the toasts, oh, your best man made such a lovely toast. I told him, I said he made a fine best man.”

I don’t want to _think_ about your toast, I can’t think about your toast right now, I need to apologize—        

            _If the love I’ve given you has made you happy…_

“Have you seen him?” I ask, facing the lady head on, and I notice dumbly that the bird on her hat is even with my chin. It’s sitting on a nest of eggs. “Have you seen my best man?”  
           

She seems unfazed by the intensity of my question, and I’m prematurely angry that she might be too senile to answer me. She pats the hand holding my wife’s, my _wife’s,_ garter. “Oh, he left, right after the first dance. One moment I was chatting with him, the next he was out the door. Why would anyone leave a wedding early?”

Oh.

_Oh._

                                  


End file.
